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Megachurches and Social Engagement Chapter 10 ‘The Evangelisation of the Nation, the Revitalisation of the Church and the Transformation of Society’: Megachurches and Social Engagement Andrew Davies 1 Introduction By common scholarly consent, Pentecostals have never been particularly engaged social or politically (Anderson 2012; Chong 2015: 219; Davies 2018a; Davies 2019).1 It was not that they were uncaring or uninterested. It did not take the early Pentecostals long to confront the social challenges faced by their communities, even if in small ways, through the establishment of care homes, orphanages and feeding programmes (Kay 2009: 302; Wilson 2011:12). Yet they were too focussed on their hope for the ultimate (as far as they were con- cerned, impending) resolution of eternity to be too deeply and systematically concerned with the hardships faced in the here and now, even when these were hardships that were faced by their own community as much as by any other. Furthermore, they appear to have been concerned that engagement with any sort of ‘social gospel’ would distract them from their central call to preach the ‘full gospel’ of individual transformation through faith in the saving death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Undoubtedly, the priority of the earliest Pentecostals was “saving souls rather than changing socio-economic and poli- tical structures” (Hunt 2011: 157), and they were so committed to individual transformation that systemic change never became a priority for them (Prakash 2010). But, as time passed and the movement grew, Pentecostals found “such strong solidarity among themselves, courageously going against social norms such as racial segregation, that they forged a social and spiritual culture 1 I am indebted to my colleague Grace Milton for her invaluable support with the initial re- search for this chapter. © Andrew Davies, 2020 | doi 10.1163/9789004412927_012 This is an open access chapter distributed under the terms of the CC BY-NC 4.0 license. Andrew Davies - 9789004412927 Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 11:13:56PM via free access <UN> Megachurches and Social Engagement 215 where the hopeless found a space to experience God’s grace and power” (Ma 2009: 42), and that space simply had to grow outward. As Gros observes, Pentecostalism, though it did not possess a social programme, became itself a social programme (Gros 1987: 12). Their dynamic and entrepreneurial approach to life in general, their distinctive commitment and connection to the poor and downtrodden in society and their innate skill in gathering them, motivating them and releasing them into activism meant that when the Pentecostals did more consciously turn their attention to building a better world, they ap- proached the task with dedication and vigour, and to dramatic effect. By the turn of the millennium, we saw the rise of ‘progressive Pentecostals’, a new kind of “Christians who claim to be inspired by the Holy Spirit and the life of Jesus and seek to holistically address the spiritual, physical, and social needs of people in their community” (Miller and Yamamori 2007: 2). The engine room of the Christian quest for social transformation had moved to the Global South and to the Pentecostals. And whilst they are very actively present in much smaller churches too (Miller and Yamamori 2007: 135), many of those socially- engaged ‘progressive Pentecostals’ can today be found in the world’s largest megachurches, which in many quarters now embrace the social gospel with as much energy as their antecedents had denounced it just a couple of genera- tions before. Of course, by no means all megachurches are Pentecostal, even by the broadest definition. There are a handful of ‘progressive’ megachurches, one very notable example being All Saints Episcopal Church, Pasadena, California,2 with its long tradition of social concern, rights advocacy and political cam- paigning. And there are lots of megachurches which are solidly Evangelical and equally firmly not Pentecostal, such as the smaller of London’s two Angli- can megachurches, All Souls Langham Place. But if a megachurch is rightly to be defined by its culture, its style and its theology as well as its attendance (cf. Chong 2015: 216; Niemandt and Lee 2015; Thumma 2012) then perhaps it is inevitable that there will be a significant amount of overlap between the Pen- tecostals/Charismatics and the megachurches ecclesiologically. I suggest there are also strong connections between Pentecostal/Charismatic and mega- church notions of social justice and transformation, and that ongoing evolu- tion of each movement’s perspective has reinforced and sustained emerging change in the other’s. It is doubtful the megachurch movement would exist in its current form without Pentecostalism, but equally I suspect the ‘progressive 2 https://allsaints-pas.org. Andrew Davies - 9789004412927 Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 11:13:56PM via free access <UN> 216 Davies Pentecostals’ would not have sought to pursue their transformative influence so extensively had they not seen the megachurches supporting this new agenda, sustaining and propagating it more widely through their collabo- rations, conferences and events, and consistently forging new pathways for others to follow by drawing upon the imagination and innovation that has long been a distinctive of Pentecostalism (Petersen 2013: 51). As we will see, many of these megachurches are now using that influence to immensely posi- tive effect across the world, drawing upon their own distinctive approaches in contextually- appropriate ways to address the needs that are common to all humanity. Socially-engaged megachurches understand their social concern activity to be a fundamental part of their commitment to be missional expressions of Christian community at the heart of society. Holy Trinity Brompton (htb) offers an excellent practical demonstration of this ideology in practice. Its vi- sion, “to play our part in the evangelisation of the nation, the revitalisation of the church and the transformation of society” sounds at first as if the church sees itself as possessing three, albeit related, responsibilities, but actually the church sees the three clauses not only as indivisible and indistinguish- able, but actually as amounting simply to different ways of phrasing the same core pursuit. As far as htb are concerned, evangelisation, revitalisation and transformation are three ‘modes’ of the same unified mission rather than dis- tinct personae. That mindset undoubtedly, and extensively, shapes the char- acter and form of the church’s social engagement, which for them is not an optional, supplementary concern, but is rather, to continue the trinitarian allusion, its very essence and source of being. For htb, a revitalised church must, as its natural outcome, proclaim the gospel (through evangelism) and live it out (through social transformation) and the resulting spiritual growth must always both promote and result in human flourishing, thereby building stronger communities and making the world a better place for all its citizens. If that is the case, then, what are the megachurches doing to help deliver this world? 2 Megachurches and Social Engagement 2.1 Confronting Poverty in the West If there is any element of commonality to the Western megachurches’ social engagement strategies, it is that the vast majority of them offer a variety of activities seeking to improve the life circumstances of individuals in poverty Andrew Davies - 9789004412927 Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 11:13:56PM via free access <UN> Megachurches and Social Engagement 217 in their own community and, often, in other corners of the world, seeking in a variety of ways to address the “embedded sense of powerlessness” among the poor (Myers 2015: 117). The five London congregations we studied as part of the University of Birmingham’s Megachurches and Social Engagement in London research project from 2013–163 all pursued such ministries, with feeding projects and initiatives for rough sleepers and the homeless such as touring medical and hygiene facilities, soup kitchens, short-term shelters, street work and hostel services being particularly important for them. New Wine Church in Woolwich, London, provides a free breakfast every Saturday for the underprivileged of the local community and invites them to stay, if they wish, for a short service (just about all of them do). Manchester, England’s 5,000-member !Audacious Church4 provides free lunches for school children from poorer backgrounds during the long summer holidays, and is one of a few British churches (also including New Wine and Kingsway International Chris- tian Centre) that collect and deliver Christmas food and gift hampers for un- derprivileged families in their area. In Sweden, Uppsala’s Livets Ord (Living Word) Church runs its own hostel for the homeless and works closely with lo- cal police and civic authorities to offer a Nattvandring or ‘night patrol’ service to look out for those in need on the city streets5 whilst Ukraine’s Embassy of the Blessed Kingdom of God for all Nations not only feeds the hungry but seeks to teach healthy living and eating to its congregation members.6 Poverty relief activities were also a prominent focus of the megachurches featured in Omri Elisha’s study in Knoxville, Tennessee, where he notes the commitment of what he labels “socially engaged evangelicals” to supporting “local populations such as the urban poor, the homeless, racial and ethnic mi- norities, and the sick and elderly … [by] volunteering at soup kitchens
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